EL SEGUNDO, CA – Nokia increased its mobile phone unit shipments in the third quarter by more than the total second-quarter shipments of Fujitsu, Ningbo Bird, TCL-Alcatel, Panasonic, Pantech & Curitel, and UTStarcom combined – and more than the collective increases in shipments from the other four top mobile-handset suppliers in the third quarter.

Nokia’s global mobile-handset shipments rose by a stunning 10.9 million units compared to the second quarter, says iSuppli Corp. The sales leader increased its shipments to 111.7 million units, up 10.8% sequentially. This gave the company a global market share of 39.5%, up from 37.9% in the second quarter.

“The company’s shipments of ‘convergence’ mobile phones that integrate multimedia and smart-phone features grew by 53.8%” year-over-year, said Tina Teng, analyst, wireless communications, for iSuppli.

The disappointment in Nokia’s third-quarter results came in its its performance in the Americas , where it a shipment decline of 12.7% in Latin America and 1.7% in North America vs. last year.

Worldwide mobile phone shipments amounted to 283 million units, up 6.4% sequentially and 15.4% compared to the third quarter in 2006, according to iSuppli.

High first-time sales of phones in emerging markets and high replacement rates in Europe were the major factor driving the growth.

The Top-5 mobile handset suppliers benefited from the healthy growth, with all of these companies increasing their shipments during the third quarter compared to the second.

Combined shipments for these companies rose 9.6% sequentially.

While Nokia’s unit shipment gain was impressive, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. of South Korea actually posted a slightly larger increase on a percentage basis, helping the company to maintain the second rank in the industry.

Samsung’s global mobile-handset shipments rose to 42.6 million units, up 13.9% sequentially. Compared to the same quarter last year, Samsung’s shipments rose by 38.8%, the highest rate of all the Top-5 mobile-handset makers.

This boosted Samsung’s market share to 15.1%, up from 14.1% in the second quarter, 2.2 points over No. 3 Motorola.

“Samsung’s strong performance was due to impressive increases in shipments in the European and Americas regions,” Teng said. “The company’s shipments in Europe and the Americas rose by 28.1% and 26.6% respectively in the third quarter. This more than offset the 6% sequential decline in shipments in Asia during the same period.”

Based on iSuppli’s preliminary estimate of Motorola’s share, the company shipped 36.5 million mobile handsets, up 2.8% sequentially. This lagged the handset market’s overall shipment growth rate of 6.4%, but kept Motorola’s market share fairly steady at around 13%. However, on a year-to-year basis, Motorola’s shipments plunged by 32.7%, making it the only company not to post an increase on an annual basis in the third quarter.

In the second quarter Motorola lost its longtime No. 2 ranking to Samsung. The company struggled to achieve an operating profit in the first and second quarters, says iSuppli. However, “with its new product line coming out during the holiday season, Motorola should be able to achieve continued growth in shipment volume during the fourth quarter,” Teng said.

LG was the clear leader in terms of volume-shipment percentage growth, with its sales rising by 14.7% sequentially, says the research firm.
 
However, all the growth was driven by emerging markets such as the Middle East, Latin America, India and China, as was reflected in its average selling price.  Slow sales in North America and Europe resulted in LG’s mobile-handset ASP falling to $124, down 18.6% from the second quarter.

Despite a revenue decline of 7.9% (measured in won), LG still managed to maintain its operating profit at 8.4%.